Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 03 (14 page)

“You would,” Claire muttered, and strode to the door, sulking like a tomboy chased off the court.

The boss hopped off his desk, stepped around and settled into a swiveling leather armchair. He leaned back and smiled grimly. “I got more patience than the next guy. Only I used it up, being your patsy. Get straight here, Tom. You’d of been on a slab yesterday noon, if I wanted it that way. See, Harry Poverman gets what he wants. That clear?”

“Swell. You wanta get on the phone, right?”

“I wanta know who’s Jack Meechum, and I want that you address me like a guy could have you put to sleep any second.”

Hickey didn’t see the man’s foot hit a buzzer or whatever summoned the troops who suddenly burst in: Raymond and the Greek through the redwood door, a costumed security man through each of the side doors, all of them with pistols leveled at Hickey.

What surprised Hickey most was his composure, as though his nerves had gotten fried, discarded, replaced with new ones that hadn’t yet learned the correct response to danger. He nodded at the security cops, greeted them by name.

Harry laughed. “Look at this guy. An iceberg, or what?” He waved his arm to the troops. “Scram.”

The way Hickey measured his options, he could either call the man’s bluff or play along. Call his bluff and lose, the game’s over. Win, and he keeps his pride, nothing else. Wendy’s still just as gone. He laid the .45 on his knee. “You wanta know about Meechum?”

“Yeah.”

Hickey sat and droned the story about Jack Meechum telling the police that Cynthia’d left Eschelman’s jam session to meet with the beachcomber, just before the fire.

The boss was a good listener. He didn’t stir until the story was over. Then he stood, stretched his legs and arms, did a few jumping jacks, and finally stepped dangerously close to Hickey. Reached out a hand. Patted Hickey’s shoulder. “I like the way the cards are falling. Yeah, I like it fine. You pin the snatch on Foster; I give you a raise for getting him outta my hair.”

“Your hair? You got action in Reno?”

“Mind your business, Tom.”

Poverman stepped back to the desk and reached for the phone, dialed O, and in his silkiest voice told the operator that when she next visited his club, she ought to stop by his office for some drink tokes. Finally he gave her the number and turned to Hickey. “I gotta tell you about this Meechum doll, Foster’s kid. …”

His voice slithering downward, he drawled into the mouthpiece.

“Hey, darling, remember old Harry?…Come on up then, anytime. Just call ahead.…Naw, she’s last year’s headlines. Listen, your old man around?…Yeah, well, tell him to throw on a towel so as not to blush when he springs a big one, looking at you.…Hey, sure he’s your dad, but a dish like you, any man alive’d spring one.…Yeah, I’m naughty, all right. Put the old man on.”

Lowering the receiver, he turned to Hickey. “I gotta tell you, this one’s a case. You mighta noticed her hanging around a couple days last summer—the broad can’t keep her clothes on, not a swimsuit even. Out at the pool, the lake, on the boat. I hear she’s got a pool in the yard down there, and don’t matter who shows up, could be the Boy Scouts on a scavenger hunt, you think she’s gonna throw on a robe? Right in front of her old man, she struts around in all her glory, the way I hear it. She’s got this—”

The redwood door opened a crack. Claire’s face appeared, and the boss waved her in. She went straight to Hickey, fed him a pretzel.

Muffling the receiver, his voice a tone deeper than any he’d managed before, Harry boasted, “I’m about to wrap up this caper, as they say, so you and I can celebrate, Miss Blackwood. Champagne dinner in the penthouse lounge.”

“Where do you keep the penthouse in a two-story firetrap like this?”

“Hey, never mind the altitude. It’s atmosphere does the trick. You care for gypsy violins?” He tossed up his free hand, index finger high, and lifted the receiver. “Yeah, Frankie.…Sure, long time. Listen, I gotta see you.…Up here, about a deal, a kinda partnership.…Naw, I don’t wanta come down. I got this busted foot.…Aw, I was skiing, bindings jammed. So you and the kid get yourselves up here—Frieda’ll have the hors d’oeuvres waiting. Whatta you drink?…Okay, four o’clock, no later, huh?”

Harry dropped the phone into its cradle, turned, and gazed at Claire, smug as a diplomat.

“He’s coming?” Hickey snapped.

The gambler made an ornery face and shrugged. “He said yeah, but I don’t buy it. We’ll send an escort.” One eye on Claire, he dialed the phone and waited. “Tyler, you think Frieda could survive you being gone a couple hours?…Hey, the horses are Mac’s job.
You
go into the office, look up the address for a dame called Meechum in Reno. Take the wagon down there; pick up Frankie Foster, the gal’s old man. Bring her along, she can drive for you. Foster puts up a fuss, knock him silly—only make sure he can talk when he gets here.…Not the club. Bring him to the house.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Leo figured it was midafternoon. Living almost seventy years can give you a handle on time, even through a less than routine day, when half of you is numb and the other half aches as though from a fever that could melt iron.

Most of the last hour the punks had left him alone. Bass paced, using a makeshift walking stick he’d found, rapping it on the floor in jazzy rhythms. Denny sat in a captain’s chair, whittling a hunk of two-by-four into a cylinder. The driver sprawled on the floor leaning against the wall, his hat tipped over his eyes as though imitating the hombre in white and a sombrero who takes his siestas in the shade of a cactus.

Leo felt remote from his brain, as if it were a distant radio station with a feeble transmitter. Whenever he gave up, a signal would cut in loud and clear before long, through the static. The last time, it had sent a message he labored for minutes to understand.

“Bass,” he mumbled. “I got a deal.”

The man halted mid-stride. “Let me hear it.”

“Give me a pen and paper.”

“What for?”

“A letter. To my pal, Tom Hickey.”

Bass cackled. “Hey, Denny. What do you think, ain’t the old guy a character? What’re you gonna say to him, Pancho? Maybe you want to give him our address, huh?”

For pride’s sake, Leo wanted to throw out a wisecrack, but every word sapped him like swimming a mile in breakwater used to. “I’m gonna say,
Let it go, Tom, whatever happens. If they take me out I’m leaving Vi, Una, Magda, Elizabeth, Wendy, and the kid all in your hands. So drop it
. That’s all.”

Bass squinted and peered at Leo as though with X-ray eyes. “I get it Pancho. You’re trying to spare his ass and save us the trouble. Yeah, why not? Denny, run upstairs, rifle the desk for a pen and paper and a book or something to write on. Pancho’s doing us a favor. Helluva guy, no?”

While Denny ambled toward the stairs, Bass lifted his walking stick into both hands as though preparing to dance a soft shoe. He stepped behind Leo, hitched the walking stick under the old man’s chin, and leaned backward. Instantly it cut off Leo’s wind. In seconds his eyes bulged and his tongue swelled even bigger than their blows to his mouth had left it. His skull seemed to fill with tepid water.

Bass pulled harder. A large splinter pierced through the skin of Leo’s neck and stabbed his Adam’s apple. When Bass let go, the splinter remained.

Denny loomed overhead, offering Leo a telephone book and stationery. “This is classy stuff. Got perfume on it.”

Before he accepted the stationery, Leo reached up and tried to pluck out the splinter. The tip broke off in his skin. When he swallowed, it jabbed viciously. He took the stationery, set it on the phone book in his lap, accepted the pen. The stationery had a border of morning glory vines. Leo’s hands were too stiff to write. He printed in letters composed of straight lines and sharp angles.

When he’d finished, Denny gave him the envelope. He wrote Tom’s name, rural route number, and town, stuffed the letter inside, licked and sealed it, and gave it to Bass. “Put your address in the return corner,” he muttered. Then his head and shoulders slumped forward. His eyes shut. Both hands dropped to his sides as his brain discovered a cool, dark cavern to rest in.

“There’s stamps in the desk,” Denny said. “How about I go stick it in the mailbox?”

Bass tossed him the letter. “Yeah, and walk down to the grocery. Buy some gum and candy. See if they got those nonpareils.”

Chapter Twenty-two

The first half hour back at the house, Hickey let the boss shoot pool while he tried to prophesy where the shots would go. He analyzed the caroms. So far, it was the best distraction he’d found. But he snapped to attention at the sound of tires on gravel. He bolted to the archway, peered into the living room; Harry sank his third straight combo.

The doorbell clanged. Frieda sauntered out of the far wing, stuck her eye to the peephole. When she opened the door, Claire hurried in, tossing her flyaway hair. Lugging her tote bag, she hustled through the maze of Formica and around the snake pit. She ran up to Hickey, gave him a kiss on the cheek, reached for his free hand, and gripped it tightly. “Tom, don’t get too excited, this is a long shot. I’ve been calling all the lodges and hotels, describing Wendy and the car. I can’t say it’s them, but there’s a man and a young woman, pregnant, kind of small, checked into the lodge at Carnelian Bay yesterday morning. They’re still registered. The fellow I talked to hadn’t seen them outside.”

“When’d you talk to this guy?” Hickey rasped.

“Just now. I was on the phone to him when the food got delivered.”

Hickey wheeled on the gambler, his brain pulsing so fiercely it seemed likely to dislodge his eyeballs. “Put your shoes on. We’re going for a ride.”

“Swell. I’ll drive, huh? Miss Blackwood, you can sit up front with me.”

“Claire’ll drive.”

The gambler shrugged and called Frieda out of the kitchen, told her to fetch him his overcoat, driving cap, a muffler, and gloves. While she was gone, he reminded Hickey that he too could shoot, and they’d do better with two guns. Hickey thanked him for the advice. He picked up the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office, gave the fellow on duty his name, and asked for the sheriff and at least one deputy to meet him at the roadhouse just east of Carnelian Bay.

When Frieda returned, Harry told her to sit by the phone and spell out any messages, while Claire ran out and got her car turned around and ready to speed. It was a four-door Pontiac her dead husband had bought her for a wedding present in 1939, the year she graduated from Mills College in Oakland.

The upholstery was tattered. In back, on the passenger side behind the boss, Hickey felt a torn piece of headliner resting on his hat.

He told Claire to cut left at the end of the driveway and pull over beside his car. When she stopped, he ordered Harry to step out and stand by while he switched the .45 to his left hand, dug the keys out of his right front pocket, opened the trunk, and got his snub-nosed .38 out of the suitcase. The gambler nodded and put his hand out for the gun.

Hickey stuffed it into his own coat pocket.

While Claire sped up the hill toward the highway, Harry listed the advantages they would’ve gained by taking his new Ford roadster: speed, warmth, luxury, the new-car smell, and a radio that could pick up signals from Texas.

After swerving to miss a dog and fishtailing, Claire grumbled, “Aren’t you going to say that in your car we wouldn’t have a woman driver?”

“Hey, Miss Blackwood, I bet you could drive at Indy. I’d back you.” Pretending to fool with the heater knob, Harry scooted a few inches to the left, sniffed the air, and asked, “What kinda perfume?”

“None.”

He sighed. “That’s beautiful. Once in a lifetime, you find a lady that smells better than all the chemists in France could dream up.”

“Such a huckster. Is that and perfidy all a fellow needs to make a fortune these days?” Claire wheeled left onto the highway.

The boss crooked his neck to get a glimpse of Hickey. “Where’s the justice, Tom. A guy spills his guts—excuse the lingo, Miss Blackwood—guy speaks from the heart and gets tagged with a lousy name. Huckster.” He sighed again.

The few clouds over the north shore were scattered and fluffy. The dark ones had blown south over Mount Tallac. Tires had swept the highway of most of the recent snow. Sunlight flashed off the shiny asphalt, masking the windshield with glare. Claire hunched over the wheel and maneuvered as though to certify Poverman’s crack about her driving. The sharp turns, she skidded around. On the straightaways, she gave the horn a toot and passed everybody. Highballing over the hill at north Stateline past the Cal Neva Lodge and the Crystal Bay Club, she sent a few pedestrians diving for cover. She had Hickey braced against the front seat. Harry gripped the dashboard, tossing her compliments and encouragement while they zoomed past the pine log and cedar shake motels of Brockway and Kings Beach.

Between the benzedrine, hope, and apprehension, Hickey felt charged enough to sling lightning out of his hands. Nerves sputtering, every muscle wound so tightly it seemed the next turn it would snap and unravel, he envisioned two men sprinting across the beach, tripping over a fallen tree, staggering and plunging into the lake. His .45 sighted between a man’s shoulders, Hickey would’ve squeezed, cheered as the goon flung up his hands and toppled face first into the water, except Wendy stood by. She’d seen enough blood for a lifetime. He dropped his gun so he could wrap both arms around her. Her skin all over shivered against him, radiating heat. The baby squirmed. He thought he heard it coo.

The next scene, at home that night, on the couch beside the wood stove, Wendy sat on his knee, snuggling her hair against his chin. The door flew open and Leo filled the doorway. He took off his hat, flicked and sailed it across the room, onto the hook beside Hickey’s black felt. The old man grinned victoriously.

Claire skidded left off the highway and gravel in front of the roadhouse, whose only sign was the neon that spelled out
cocktails
. She finally stopped, beside the sheriff’s cruiser, when she slammed into the tree trunk barrier. From inside the roadhouse, a stand-up bass, drums, steel guitar, and vocalist chanted blues. Amateur night.

Sheriff Boggs and a deputy who looked half Indian, muscle-bound and sleepy, climbed out of the cruiser. The deputy walked around and met Hickey, the sheriff, the gambler, and the lady between the two cars. Boggs stood a forehead smaller than the other men, about Claire’s height, and lean. His mustache looked like the brush on a push broom. With his mouth shut, bristles hid both lips. His skin appeared diseased, raw and scaly, his eyes like bruises, as though he’d recently survived an ordeal like climbing Mount Everest.

“This here’s Roy. Me and him’d like to know why you’re jabbing Mister Poverman with an automatic. Not that we give a damn.”

“Makes me feel tough,” Hickey said. “You know Claire Blackwood?”

“Sure do.” He glanced her way and touched his hat brim. “I don’t care for your answer, Tom. Try again.”

“It’s just like it looks,” Hickey said. “He’s the closest I’ve got to finding Wendy. She turns up with somebody he doesn’t know, I apologize profusely.”

“Yeah, I get it. Now who’s gonna tell me what we’re all doing here?”

“I was calling every place around the lake,” Claire said, “asking about a pregnant woman in an Olds. A boy at Pratt’s Haven, up here at Carnelian, said yeah, there’s a couple—just the one man and her. In cabin five.”

“How long ago?”

“An hour. Maybe less.”

The sheriff nodded. “We all going in the Pontiac?”

Hickey nudged the gambler into the front between himself and Claire, didn’t bother with the gun, figuring Harry’d gotten plenty of better chances to throw him than with two cops in the back seat. The boss sat scowling as if the presence of cops upset his sensibilities. As they backed onto the highway, he leaned toward Hickey and whispered, “You’re making me look like a chump, Tom. I’m gonna call it strike two.”

It was less than a mile into Carnelian Bay. Pratt’s Haven was the first lodge. Claire pulled into a turnout across the road. From there you could see small, weather-beaten, tin-roofed log cabins in two rows leading down toward the lake, a gravel driveway in between them. Hickey climbed out, put on his glasses, leaned onto the roof of the car, and squinted to see the cabin numbers. One was on the left, two on the right. That would make number five the third cabin in the left row.

Each cabin had a front porch with a door and window, and shaded windows on the east and west sides. The tail end of a dark blue Olds jutted from behind number five.

“We need three guys,” Hickey said. He leaned into the Pontiac, told the boss to stay put, threw the door shut, and walked around to Claire, who’d gotten out and stood beside the sheriff and his deputy. “You wanta hold a gun on him, babe?” Hickey asked.

“I don’t know if I could shoot it,” she whispered.

“Neither does he. If you want it, here it is.” He fished out the .38. “Just stand back away from the car. If he comes after you, scream like mad and run to us. If he tries to make a run for it, just flip off the safety here and squeeze. You won’t hit him, but maybe he’ll stop.”

She pulled off her gloves, took the gun and measured its weight in her hands. “Okay.” She sighed and gazed aimlessly around. Though she stood bundled in a cap, ear muffs, the scotch plaid coat a schoolteacher could wear—even while Hickey felt as if he were tiptoeing beside a precipice, in a gale—he noticed how splendid she looked. Elegant, like a purebred. He reached for her free hand, gave it a squeeze.

Harry learned out the car window. “Get a move on, Romeo.”

As they started across the road, Hickey assigned the sheriff to the west window, the deputy the east, himself to the porch and front door. Sheriff Boggs had picked a twig and was nibbling. While Hickey gave orders, the sheriff had squinted incredulously. Roy the deputy watched him for a sign. Finally he spat out the twig, straightened his western hat, and nodded okay.

They stepped off the asphalt and onto gravel that seemed to crunch twice as loud beneath the crust of snow. They walked slowly, almost on tiptoes, but still might’ve wakened a drunk. Especially the Indian deputy, who probably outweighed Hickey. His footsteps sounded like the cavalry. The sheriff was quietest. Like the kind of thief who could slip in, snatch the gems, slit your throat, and disappear while your wife lay beside you telling a bedtime story. He padded in front of cabin five, ducking below window level, and wedged between the Olds and the corner of the cabin toward the west window. The Indian reached his post a few seconds later, just as Hickey took the first step to the porch.

There were three steps. Each creaked a warning, so Hickey skittered to the window beside the door and pushed his eye against the glass along the edge where the shade didn’t quite reach.

A woman pranced out of the bathroom, wearing a top-knot bow and a frilly pink nightgown, leading with her massive belly, her straight dark hair cascading over breasts that would’ve made five of Wendy’s.

After a moment during which he felt his heart liquify and bleed away, Hickey retreated to the driveway and signaled the others to follow. He glanced across the road at Claire standing still as a monument beside the front fender. His foot stubbed a pile of stones underneath a patch of snow. He reared his leg back and kicked the pile, which exploded and peppered a cabin wall.

In front of cabin number one he stopped to wait for the others, hoping the sheriff wouldn’t make some wisecrack about busting him as a voyeur. Anybody made a wisecrack, Hickey doubted he could stop himself from smashing the guy.